The present invention generally relates to a system for care visibility for use in a health care environment, such as a hospital.
The health care industry, like many industries, grows more and more dependent on information each year. The information that is available to hospital staff at any given time will have a marked impact on the efficiency and level of care received by patients. Increasing the amount of information available to staff, as well as increasing the ease of obtaining this information, will help to optimize workflow throughout the hospital and will facilitate the actual provision of health care to patients.
Specifically, nurses and other critical support staff currently spend a large amount of time trying to obtain information that will allow them to perform their job effectively. If their awareness of this information was increased, by allowing them easier access to relevant information in more locations throughout the hospital, then they would become more efficient, workflow throughout the hospital would be further optimized, and the provision of health care to patients would be facilitated.
Currently, various systems may be used in a health care environment, such as, for example, a system that monitors various conditions of a plurality of hospital beds located in different rooms of a healthcare facility as disclosed in USPA Pub. No. 2006/0049936 to Collins. This publication is hereby incorporated into the present application by reference strictly for purposes of background.
A need exists for improvement in systems for care visibility for use in a health care environment. This, and other needs, are addressed by one or more aspects of the present invention.